Home Is Where The Heart Is

When he sat down again, she spoke. “So, what’d you do this week?” She winked mischievously. “Got a girlfriend yet?”

Dylan’s blush was even darker pink as he picked at his cake with a fork. “I, um, asked Amber Moon to a movie yesterday,” he said shyly.

Emily awwed. She loved that a boy as handsome and popular as Dylan was so sweet. The boys she’d known who had looks in her high school years, besides Kade, of course, had been arrogant and cocky, but this boy was just a total sweetheart. “What’d she say?”

He grinned and finally looked her in the eye. “She said yes.”

Emily beamed and gently squeezed his hand, then removed it to take a bite of her cake. “Of course she did. What movie are you guys going to see?”

Dylan grinned again and hopped out of his seat. “I wanted to ask you about that. I know a bunch of movies that are playing on Friday, and I need your opinion on which one she’d like best.” He jogged out of the room to grab his bag, and returned with a crumpled sheet of lined paper filled with unreadable scribbles. She was amazed when he began to read movie titles and descriptions from the messy writing.

She picked one that she remembered vaguely from a commercial, one that girls in general would enjoy but that at the same time Dylan wouldn’t be falling asleep through, and he crumpled the paper into a ball and stuffed it into his back pocket, coming around the table to give her a grateful hug.

“Thanks Em,” he said, wrapping his long arms around her waist. She squeezed him back – a difficult task with her baby bump lodged between them – and pushed her chair in when he let go, collecting the dishes and rinsing them off in the sink.

“You’re welcome,” she said simply, scrubbing crumbs off Dylan’s plate. “I hope you guys have fun. Tell me about it next week?” She could’ve sworn he was rolling his eyes behind her back.

“Obviously I will, Em. I tell you, like, everything,” he said, and she shook her head in amusement. He did always tell her, regardless of her asking, but it was always nice to have confirmation. “I have your letter.” She heard him rifling through his backpack, and she whirled around faster than she thought possible when she heard the tiny thwack of the envelope hitting the wooden table.

The letter opener magnet always kept on the fridge was instantly put to work, slicing easily through the paper, and she whipped the letter out of its casing. Emily forgot Dylan was even there as she unfolded it quickly and easily, familiar with the rectangular printer paper Kade always used for his letters.

A frown line appeared between her eyebrows and her mouth turned down at the corners when she saw there was only one line printed onto the paper in Kade’s neat script.

I can’t tell you when I’m coming home.

What was this? He always wrote long letters. Sometimes they got up to around ten pages, especially when he hadn’t been able to write for a while. Why was there only one line?

And why the hell couldn’t he tell her when he was coming home? She needed to know. Not only because she missed him like crazy, but because he needed to be home for the birth of their son. Emily needed his support, or she wasn’t sure what she’d do.

She put a hand to her mouth, staring at the one sentence on the paper, her eyes beginning to water. Why would Kade do this? Had he been given orders not to disclose the information? Or had something gone so horribly wrong that he’d been unable to write more than that one sentence? Oh, no. And he always wrote ‘I love you’ at the end, even though he wasn’t necessarily the mushy type. Always. But this time, it wasn’t there. What was going on?